1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to an information processing apparatus and control method thereof, and a program, which execute imposition processing for laying out a plurality of finishing pages on a paper sheet, and laying out manuscript data on the respective finishing pages.
2. Description of the Related Art
A commercial printing business receives an order of a creation request of printed materials (magazine, newspaper, brochure, advertisement, gravure, etc.) from a third party (customer, client), creates printed materials desired by the client, and delivers them to the client so as to get a reward. The commercial printing business still prevalently uses a large-scale printing device such as an offset prepress & printing press even today.
Such printing business proceeds with operations via various processes. Such processes include, for example, manuscript reception, design & layout, comprehensive layout (presentation by means of printer output), proofing (layout correction & color correction), proof print, artwork preparation, print, post-process, shipping, and the like. Artwork preparation is mandatory for use of the aforementioned printing press, and once an artwork is prepared, it is not easy and is disadvantageous in terms of cost to correct it. Hence, elaborate proofing, i.e., layout checking and color confirmation operations are indispensable.
In this manner, such printing business requires a large-scale device, and takes considerable time to create printed materials desired by clients. However, these operations require expert knowledge, i.e., know-how of experts called craftsmen. For example, Japanese Patent Laid-Open No. 11-110535 discloses a technique for receiving a manuscript or its part data, settling a design and layout, and making proof printing.
Meanwhile, in recent years, along with the advent of high-speed, high image quality electrophotographic printing devices and ink-jet printing devices, a so-called print-on-demand market prevails as competition with the aforementioned printing business. Print-on-demand will be abbreviated as POD hereinafter.
The POD aims at handling print processing within a short delivery period by dividing a job to be handled by a printing device into those of relatively smaller lots without using any large-scale device or system. Especially, this POD implements digital prints using digital data by fully utilizing a digital image forming device such as a digital copying machine, digital multi-function peripheral, and the like in place of the large-scale printing press and printing scheme. A POD market as a POD-based business category has been developed. Such POD market merges digitalization compared to the conventional printing business, effectively utilizes computerized management and control, and makes an attempt to reach the printing business level using computers.
In such situation, PFP (Print For Pay) as a print service of a copy/print shop, CRD (Centralized Reproduction Department) as an in-house print service, and the like are known in the POD market. Note that PFP is a short for Print For Pay, and CRD is a short for Centralized Reproduction Department.
Japanese Patent Laid-Open No. 2004-310746 describes, e.g., a scheme for implementing POD using electrophotographic and ink-jet printers without using any physical plates for printing, and managing respective operation processes.
In case of the POD business field, unlike offset printing, clients who bring manuscripts into printing companies include not only DTP (desktop publishing) designers but also many office workers, students, and the like. For this reason, various manuscript forms are brought into printing companies, which cannot suppose them. For example, when a client desires borderless finishing, there are no margins or there are unnecessary printer's marks or margins, or the finishing size often does not match that he or she wants.
In such case, since the printing company cannot receive such manuscript in an imposition application intact, a skilled operator of the printing company masks unnecessary printer's marks or margins which are originally added by a DTP application in advance, or forms a margin, thus requiring a pre-process.
Furthermore, a general imposition application does not often consider margins, printer's marks, blanks, and the like on a source manuscript. For this reason, if the right and left/top and bottom margins do not have uniform widths, the center of the finish that the client intended does not match the center of the finish of the imposition application. In such case, the operator must finely adjust the center by manually shift the manuscript.
Normally, in the case of offset printing, post-processing (finishing processing) such as trimming, saddle stitching, case binding, sheet folding, punching, and the like is executed using an offline finisher. In the case of on-demand printing, on the other hand, an inline finisher and offline finisher connected to a digital MFP (multi-function peripheral) are normally used.
For example, even when printing the same contents, if a delivery period is short and the number of copies is small, the inline finisher is often used; if the number of copies is large, the offline finisher is often used. However, a print company must attain consistent finished results demanded by their clients using either means.
For this reason, the print company often must change the imposition method depending on the inline or offline finisher. For example, in case of case binding using the inline finisher, because the inline finisher trims only three sides (i.e., “top, bottom, and edge”), a finishing page must be aligned with the “binding” side of a sheet. In contrast, in the case of the offline finisher, print processing and post-processing are executed in different procedures, and the offline finisher trims four sides (i.e., “top, bottom, edge, and gutter”), and a finishing page must be rendered at the center of a sheet. For this reason, the print company must manually change the imposition method depending upon whether the inline or offline finisher is used in post-processing.
Also, manuscript data must also be changed depending upon the post-processing. For example, since the inline finisher does not trim the “gutter” side, if the four sides of a manuscript similarly have margins, the margin at the “gutter” side is impeditive. However, if the offline finisher is used, since it also trims the “gutter” side, the margin preferably exists on the “gutter” side. For this reason, the print company must execute pre-processing before imposition to form a manuscript suited to either the inline or offline finisher used in post-processing.